...and you like it

What makes people think they can manage a software team?

I love this quip from Joel Spolsky’s foreward to Mike Gunderloy’s Coder
to Developer.

There’s something weird about software development, some mystical
quality, that makes all kinds of people think they know how to do it.
I’ve worked at dotcom-type companies full of liberal arts majors with
no software experience or training who nevertheless were convinced
that they knew how to manage software teams and design user
interfaces. This is weird, because nobody thinks they know how to
remove a burst appendix, or rebuild a car engine, unless they actually
know how to do it, but for some reason there are all these people
floating around who think they know everything there is to know about
software development.

Spot on Joel! I need to print this out and hand it to everyone on the
business side of my company.